() "The enemy army has been dispatched!"

Zhao Laoqi was closing his eyes to recuperate, and he listened to his subordinates report the latest movements of Wu Yueguo's sailors.

"Hehe, they're all small boats that don't go into the stream!" Zhao Laoqi climbed the mast, held a monocular, and watched the movements of the enemy army.

After observing for a while, Zhao Laoqi immediately climbed down the mast and ordered loudly: "Order all the ships to turn around and retreat outside Hangzhou Bay." ”

Although there were many large ships of the Li Jiajun Naval Division, each ship was equipped with at least five monoculars. That is, the lookout sentries on each ship, as well as the captain who commanded the operation, were equipped with monoculars.

In this way, Li Jiajun's sailors could discover the enemy's movements in advance and make timely evasions.

To put it bluntly, the big ships of the naval division are most afraid not of the enemy's large number of ships, but that the enemy army takes advantage of the narrow terrain and adopts the strategy of fire attack.

Now that the brothers of the infantry army have landed on the land, it is naturally impossible for Zhao Laoqi to fight hard with Wu Yue's sailors, and it is inevitable to retreat to an open area.

Not to mention that Zhao Laoyi commanded the naval division to fight against the enemy, Li Zhongyi led 40,000 soldiers and horses, and after landing on the right bank of Hangzhou Bay, the first enemy army he faced was Wu Yueguo's Zhenhaidu stationed in Xiuzhou.

Xiuzhou, that is, most of present-day Jiaxing City, and part of Songjiang Prefecture.

Fan Zhen once commented on Xiuzhou: Xiuzhou is rare and Xi military, You Mu Wenru, not worried about cold and discouraged, and quite farming. It is between the two major mansions of Suzhou and Hangzhou, next to the three rivers, good at the benefits of fish and salt in the lake, the hometown of rice in Ze country, and the customs are beautiful. The prosperity of the literary and virtuous figures, looking at each other before and after.

To put it bluntly, Xiuzhou is also a typical land of fish and rice, and there are many wealthy families in the city, which is one of the treasure troves that Li Zhongyi wants to swallow in one bite.

After landing near Xiuzhou, Li Zhongyi ordered Li Yong to lead his brothers in the cavalry army to surround Xiuzhou.

Li Zhongyi gave Li Yong, that is, quite Chaoyong's order, there was only one order, namely: Don't let go of a rich family in the city!

Li Yong naturally did not dare to slack off on Li Zhongyi's strict orders, and he immediately discussed with Qian Shude, who was in charge of the army, and the two of them each led a cavalry army, marched hand in hand, and blocked the four gates of Xiuzhou respectively.

Qian Shude, the cavalry pacification envoy, although he was a general of the pacification system, was very familiar with the combat characteristics of the cavalry because he had been in charge of the cavalry for many years.

Therefore, Qian Shude unequivocally took over half of the cavalry, led the soldiers, and blocked the north and west gates of Xiuzhou tightly, not even a single mosquito escaped.

When Li Zhongyi rushed to Xiuzhou City, Li Yongtang's artillery army had already set up all the cannons, just waiting for Li Zhongyi to order a general attack.

The sunset was slightly dazzling, but it did not affect Li Zhongyi's good mood at all, he smiled and said to Li Yongtang: "Your kid's hands and feet are quite numb, this has already opened the frame and is ready to bombard?" ”

Li Yongtang said with a smile: "This is God's arrangement, I don't want you to suffer outside the city." ”

Li Zhongyi laughed, Li Yongtang, who was not good at words, also followed him and learned the good kung fu of flamboyant tongue.

In Li Zhongyi's monocular telescopic lens, the Wu Yue generals in the city showed fear on their faces one by one. One of the generals at the head even pointed to the artillery that had been set up in formation, and turned his head and didn't know what to say?

Li Zhongyi knew very well in his heart that the Wu Yue people in Xiuzhou should be guessing what artillery was, right?

In the north of the Qianghan Empire, the Khitans and the Fu army suffered enough from artillery.

Earlier, the imperial counterinsurgency army led by Han Tong collapsed in an instant under the bombardment of artillery.

Since Li Zhongyi tossed out the artillery, the so-called famous generals who defended the city at the same time were destined to become the generals of the defeated army who were trapped in the city.

It is also the land of thirteen states, and the populations of the Northern Han Kingdom and the Wu Yue Kingdom cannot be compared.

So far, the thirteen states of the Northern Han Kingdom have a population of less than one million.

However, Xiuzhou in Wu Yue Kingdom alone has a population of 200,000. As for the capital of Wu Yueguo, Hangzhou, the western province, has a staggering population of 390,000.

Objectively speaking, the total population of Hangzhou is only slightly inferior to that of Jinling, the capital of the Southern Tang Dynasty.

The so-called northerners are good at bowing horses, and southerners are good at boats, and the characteristics derived from this are actually that southerners are better at making money and doing business than northerners, while northerners are better at engaging in martial arts.

Facing Xiuzhou, where the city is high and the ditch is deep, Li Zhongyi ordered lightly: "Find some soldiers with loud voices and ask them to tell the guards in the city that it is still too late to surrender in Kaicheng." Otherwise, the heroes of the Heavenly Empire would not be able to guarantee their net worth. ”

Zhang Sanzheng, who had been standing behind Li Zhongyi, couldn't help but pout, secretly feeling funny.

Li Zhongyi knew that the defenders of Xiuzhou would never surrender without a fight, but he sent people to shout in public to persuade him to surrender, which was obviously a blatant digging of a pit!

In the Li family's army, it has long been rumored that there are many poor people in Jinyang, there are many beauties in the Southern Tang Dynasty, and there are many silver coins in Wu Yue.

After hearing that they were going south to crusade against Wu Yue and the Southern Tang Dynasty, the soldiers in the forbidden army rushed to sign up for the war, lest they be left behind in Kaifeng to defend the city.

In fact, not only did the soldiers all want to join the army, but even Zhang Sanzheng also wanted to go into battle to kill a few more enemies and grab more money.

According to the rules of Li Jiajun's expedition, although all seizures must be handed over to the public first, when the meritorious deeds are rewarded afterwards, the greater the credit, the more dividends will be shared.

Zhang Sanzheng has been staying by Li Zhongyi's side, so he naturally lost it, and the great opportunity to charge into battle and kill the enemy to make meritorious contributions really made him sigh.

The guard general of Xiuzhou is Wang Xingkao, the envoy of Zhenhai Festival, and he is also the commander of Zhenhai Capital.

Because of the difference in military systems, the establishment of only more than 100 people in the Li family's army is similar to the establishment of the army in Wu Yueguo.

The defenders of Xiuzhou totaled 15,000 people, however, due to the peaceful life that lasted for nearly a hundred years, the generals of Wu Yueguo had become seriously out of touch with the actual war.

To put it bluntly, that is, the time of peace has been too long, resulting in Wang Xingkao losing the ability to go out of the city to face the battle, in addition to being able to defend the city.

When the content of Li Jiajun's shouting reached Wang Xingkao's ears, he couldn't help sneering: "If you want to get it without a fight, did Li Thief really not wake up?" ”

"Come on, find a few loud voices, shout to the northern thieves, and tell them that there are many heroes in my Wuyue Kingdom, and they are by no means greedy for life and afraid of death, and surrender without a fight." Wang Xingkao obviously felt a huge fear in his heart, and because the Qian family treated him well, he could only fight back by pretending to be calm.

"I, Wu Yueguo, serve the Han Dynasty as a minister, why do you raise troops to attack, it makes no sense!"

Wang Xingkao only listed the scope of the shouting, and did not stipulate the specific content of the shouting, and as a result, the shouters actually began to write sour words.

After Li Zhongyi heard Wang Xingkao's shouting clearly, he couldn't help but smile slightly: "As a soldier, but he admires literature and suppresses martial arts to such a situation, can An be undefeated?" ”

"Yes, Your Majesty, the military ministers should be bloody and brave to kill the enemy, where is there so much knowledge to talk about?" Zhang Sanzheng saw that Li Zhongyi's mood was good, so he joined in the fun and amused.

Li Zhongyi ordered with a smile: "Order Li Yongtang to collapse the city gate of Xiuzhou within an hour." ”

After so many battles, the use of artillery to blast open the enemy's city gates, even if slow, never lasted more than an hour.

To put it bluntly, the bombardment time left by Li Zhongyi for Li Yongtang can be described as unusually abundant.

"Listen to me, calibrate the shelling, fire!" Li Yongtang unhurriedly gave the order to calibrate the artillery bombardment.

In the Li family's artillery corps, according to the requirements of the artillery drill code, before the shelling, a cannon will be fired tentatively, so as to further calibrate the amount of ammunition, angle, wind direction and direction of the shelling.

As soon as the "......" 12-pounder gun was ready, a terrifying roar followed.

The first shell of the "Boom ......" did not hit the city gate, but smashed into the wall.

Wang Xingkao felt a violent shaking under his feet, he subconsciously held the arrow buttress with both hands, and with the help of his teeth, he barely stood firm.

However, the ordinary officers and soldiers near Wang Xingkao were not as lucky as him, and everyone was shaken left and right, and they fell to the ground one after another.

"The elevation angle is reduced by three degrees, and the gun body is westward plus five degrees ......"

Li Yongtang, who was under the city, put down the monocular in his hand and issued a series of instructions.

After the twenty 12-pounder guns of the entire artillery group were adjusted into place, Li Yongtang gave the order without hesitation, "Open the cannon!" ”

"Boom ......"

"Boom ......"

"Boom ......"

The cannon sound rang out one after another, because the artillery lowered the elevation angle, the target was directly aimed at the city gate, and the result was that Wang Xingkao and his officers and soldiers in the city, like uncles dancing in the square, accompanied by the rumbling cannons, constantly swayed left and right.

In the lens of the monocular, Li Zhongyi could see very clearly that more than 20 12-pounder guns were fired in an orderly manner in the form of three-stage shots.

In the first wave of shelling, not a single shell hit the city gate, however, the Xiuzhou city wall, which originally looked unusually strong, the blue bricks outside the rammed earth, a big pit on the left and a big depression on the right, not to mention how ugly it was!

"Ahem, the accuracy of the smoothbore cannon is still much weaker after all!" Li Zhongyi handed the monocular to Zhang Sanzheng and shook his head regretfully.

"Your Majesty, the smoothbore cannon is not accurate, so what kind of cannon is accurate?" Zhang Sanzheng heard Li Zhongyi's regret, so he took advantage of the excitement and asked questions as if he was curious about the baby.

Li Zhongyi smiled and said, "When you get a rifled cannon, you will know, what is a real artillery?" ”

This southern expedition was mainly by boat, so Li Zhongyi brought the 12-pounder cannon as much as possible.

Its purpose is actually one: to pacify Wu Yue as soon as possible, so as to quickly advance westward and destroy the Southern Tang Kingdom!